Platonic Rhetoric as a Philosophical Response to Parrhesia

Abstract

This paper examines how Plato develops a specific concept of rhetoric and how he accomplishes both philosophical and political goals with his own version of rhetoric. Section I situates Platos interest in rhetoric in the Greek context and gives a brief overview of the paper. Section II introduces the practice of parrhesia and points out some of its defects as a democratic practice. Section III illustrates how Plato responds to the problems of parrhesia by replacing it with philosophical parrhesia through the prism of Platos Laches. Section IV examines Gorgias to see how Plato deliberately combines irony and parrhesia for philosophical and a political purposes. Section V investigates Platos description of democracy in the Republic to show how his scheme for parrhesia works in democratic regime in terms of both maintaining philosophy and reforming politics.